If Things Are So Great, Why Is This Chart So Bad?

Just as during the Great Moderation, buying financials has become the no-lose trade for any and all momo junkies. From their 'fortress' balance sheets (prone to total leveraged collapse at any moment from giant over-zealous trades and mismarking of assets) to their 'can't lose' scenario analysis if rates rise because NIM will make them rich (aside from the fact that it won't), bank stocks have been among the best performers in recent months (dramatically outperforming credit in the last few weeks). So we have a simple question. If things are so great... if the outlook so rosy... if the price-to-book so misvalued... why are the bank laying off people in 2013 at a rate almost as fast as they did in 2009?

Financial institutions are firing staff at almost the same rate in 2013 as they did in the immediate aftermath of Lehman!

Pretty much. Roughly 10000% of the profits the banks have been generating have been through trading, not lending. Lending is more labor intensive, often requiring actual human interation and other bothersome shit like that.

That is it exactly. As the proprietary desk becomes the primary profit center of the institution, real, retail banking dies, along with the broader economy. If it weren't for QE to the moon, those graphs would have to be on a log-normal scale.

Banking should be a utility. A necessary keeper of savings and giver of loans. The banking institutions role has been so perverted that it works against the people of the whole world.

Bankers have been given the freedom to leverage up and put themselves on the hook for unfathomable amounts of money in hope that they hit it big and pocket profits. If the gamble goes south, have the FED buy it, or transfer the liability to the people's tab; it's a win/no lose situation for them and a lose/lose for the pions (you and I).

Another case of a necessary entity that has used it's privileged position for power grabbing purposes so that they can game the system and make money at the expense of everyone else on the planet (Because as Santelli says, "all stimulus/money priniting is fungible.") => this is a zero-sum-game. They win; you lose.

Banks have ALL been murdered. By design. The blessed handful of TBTF will consume the rest, as "banking" transforms into a purely government role, a.k.a. "lender of last resort." Nearly all mortgages and auto loans come from Uncle Sugar these days.

In the future, if you want a loan, you'll have your approval as well as your rate set by the NSA.

The 3-6-3 Rule is how the United States retail banking industry operated from the 1950s to the 1980s.[1]:51 The name 3-6-3 refers to the impression that bankers had a stable, comfortable existence by paying 3 percent interest on deposits, lending money out at 6 percent, and being able to "tee off at the golf course by 3 p.m.

That number of people can only come from rank and file employees. That means brokers, cold callers, accountants, order takers, etc. In other words, the people in the financial industry who serve the masses. One can only conclude that the Average American is simply abandoning the markets.

Somehow I think that the same folks will just push the same fix. More EQ. More Fiat debasement. More insanity.

They need to start a war or another distraction thats the only ticket. I know, lets push immigration "reform" so that we can import 30 Million more undocumented Democrats to add the our already strained social welfare state and the Obama Care medial scam. That will fix EVERYTHING!

We call on you to ensure that whistleblower Edward Snowden is treated fairly, humanely and given due process. The PRISM program is one of the greatest violations of privacy ever committed by a government. We demand that you terminate it immediately, and that Edward Snowden be recognized as a whistleblower acting in the public interest -- not as a dangerous criminal.